In case you’re wondering why Parasite director Bong Joon-ho is working on a potential television adaptation of his now six-time Academy Award-nominated film, it’s not specifically because Adam McKay is onboard the project or because it’s purportedly headed to HBO. No, it’s because he’s already got a TV show’s worth of EPU (Expanded Parasite Universe) ideas he had to excise from his screenplay, and a small screen adaptation is the only way he’s going to fit them all into one project.
“I really liked Adam McKay’s The Big Short and I loved his sense of humour, and the sharp satire he conveyed about the current American politics,” the director told Deadline through his translator, filmmaker Sharon Choi, on Monday. “With Parasite, while I was writing the script, I had so many more ideas I couldn’t convey into the two-hour running time of the film. I knew that if I had a longer running time, I would be able to tell these stories, and I that’s what I plan to talk about with Adam pretty soon.”
“When I think of a limited series, I really think of it as an expanded film,” the director similarly told Variety on Monday. “Like Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, you have a three-hour theatrical version and a three-hour TV version. So my goal is to create a high-quality expanded version of Parasite.” Somewhere, Martin Scorsese just gasped in belated realization.